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RE: Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 01/03/18 > What hand am I suppose to use? New laws that have taken effect…
the average would be 300 new laws per year; we don’t need any more laws.
The more lawlessness, the more laws. If people made it their purpose in life to live morally, we would not need so many laws. In the small town days, you didn't need hundreds of laws. You did wrong, the community knew about it and made sure it didn't happen again. Law or no law. @ironshield
The term "morally" has different meaning to different people so that is a poor way to evaluate it my opinion. I would rather go back to the original set up which was common law.
If you injured a person or their property you had broken the law of the land. It was plain, simple and easy to understand and did not require a law degree to figure it out.
Man was free to live as he chose as long as he didn't cause injury or harm to another person. The creation of laws creates lawlessness, and that is really where the problem originates in my opinion. We no longer operate under common law, the country uses statutes and codes in place of law. Statutes and codes are treated as law but they are not law, and that is truly why we have the problem.
My morals and your morals might differ, but as long as neither one of us does something to cause injury or harm to each other then we should just leave each other alone on how we want to live.
If I chose to grow weed and smoke it, how does that injure or cause harm to another person? It doesn't , it may not fit under your set of morals, but it did not cause any other person injury or harm.
Laws have been created to give power and control to the people who make the laws, and to extract the wealth from the people by the way of fines and fees associated with the so called laws. That is truly what it boils down to in easy to understand terms.
Many laws are unjust, for extortion purposes. Many statutes are in place to benefit the authority usually in the form of money. It's like legal bribery. Building codes, parking tickets, property taxes... the list goes on and on. Bribery is immoral and wrong.
Things like speaking your mind or smoking the ganja, these are not moral issues, but ethical standards. One person may be fine with smoking weed, while others might not. Or drinking. Or driving too fast. Or breaking social mores. Things that are ethically debatable, but not morally wrong.
There are many ethical standards which people hold themselves and others to, but only one morality. When somebody violates a moral standard, it is very clear across all societies. That's when any decent person will say "That's just wrong." It's repugnant. Unless they are depraved. Then they deceive themselves into believing it's ok. Some serial killers consider themselves saints in their own minds. Some societies even adopt immoral practices, like cannibalism or euthanasia. These practices are justified by saying they're for the "greater good". That greater good is referring to the universal moral standard. The only way an immoral practice can be accepted in a society, is if a society accepts them as an absolute moral standard.
Civilization can adapt to all sorts of changing and relativistic ethical standards, but once morality becomes subjective to the individual, civilization will begin crumbling back to barbarism. @ironshield
I agree with your comment that "many laws are unjust, for extortion purposes." They exist as big cash-cows for local authorities. But if someone drives too fast and loses control of the vehicle, bringing harm or death to others, then it crosses the line between ethics and morality, in my opinion. I have lost family members because of someone's carelessly driving-too-fast.
I'm sorry you lost family members because of careless driving.
I said "driving too fast" which implies driving at unsafe speeds, but this is a bit unclear. I was referring to people who believe it is "acceptable" to drive over the speed limit to keep up with traffic on an expressway, although it's illegal. It is ethically debatable whether this is really an "acceptable" practice, but in most cases it's not a moral issue.
Being careless when behind the wheel, distracted, sleepy, unsafe speeds (driving too fast), intoxicated, etc does put lives at risk, and it is absolutely a moral issue because it puts people in harm's way. So I agree with you, it crosses the line between ethics and morality.
It's the golden rule: I don't want a sleepy driver to hit my car, I'm feeling sleepy, I'd better stop for the night.
We shouldn't require laws to enforce this sort of thing, but we do. People want to do whatever they want (moral lawlessness) but they don't want to get caught or pay the very real consequences. I think sometimes people worry more about being caught than the potential harm they could cause someone. Laws can be a deterrent for lawless people. Therefore, the more lawlessness, the more laws.
It's the old question: if you had a chance to murder a person and be guaranteed that you wouldn't get caught or experience any consequence, would you do it? The upright person would say "never", the morally lawless person would consider doing it just for the thrill. They would say "guaranteed?".
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. @ironshield